Promoting Female Interest in Economics: Limits to Nudges

We assess whether light-touch interventions can increase the proportion of women who study economics. Over 2,000 students were randomly assigned to receive a message with basic information about the economics major, the basic message combined with an emphasis on the rewarding careers or financial returns associated with the major, or no message. The basic message increased the proportion of male students majoring in economics by 2 percentage points, equivalent to the control mean. We find no significant effects for female students. Extrapolating to the full sample, the basic message would nearly double the male/female ratio among economics majors.